ABC did a little rundown of people who get enormous speaking fees in July 2014.

Donald Trump led with $1.5 million.

“The Donald earned a staggering $1.5 million per speech at The Learning Annex’s ‘real estate wealth expos’ in 2006 and 2007,” according to Forbes. “Trump appeared at 17 seminars and collected this fee for each one.”

Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Timothy Geithner all came in at 200k.

W gets 150k.

Since leaving office, the former president has made more than $15 million in speaking fees, apparently charging between $100,000 and $150,000 per speech, according to Yahoo News.

Being president turns out to be a nice little earner.

Condoleezza Rice gets 150k. Larry Summers, 135. Al Gore and Sarah … Read the rest

Greg Grandin in The Nation takes a look at Hillary Clinton’s admiration for, of all people, Henry Kissinger.

Last night in the New Hampshire debate, Clinton thought to close her argument that she is the true progressive with this: “I was very flattered when Henry Kissinger said I ran the State Department better than anybody had run it in a long time.”

Henry Kissinger.

Let’s consider some of Kissinger’s achievements during his tenure as Richard Nixon’s top foreign policy maker. He (1) prolonged the Vietnam War for five pointless years, (2) illegally bombed Cambodia and Laos, (3) goaded Nixon to wiretap staffers and journalists, (4) bore responsibility for three genocides in Cambodia, East Timor, and Bangladesh, (5) urged Nixon to

A couple of Daily Mail reporters went to visit Roosh V and found him, scruffy and unappetizing, living in his mother’s basement. No not figuratively; literally.

Daryush ‘Roosh’ Valizadeh, 36, the self-proclaimed ‘King of Masculinity’ called police after receiving death threats from around the world and canceled a series of ‘tribal meetings’ in 45 countries set for this weekend.

I love those self-declared kings of something who are actually just dorks who spend too much time on Twitter.

In a highly-criticized blog he said that if a woman was raped on private property, it should be legal.

Today he told police that it was meant to be a satirical article and that he had written it in early 2015

And then in October CNN reported that Clinton said she won’t reinstate Glass-Seagall – saying also that she would do something “more comprehensive,” but that sounds to me like jam tomorrow.

Davenport, Iowa (CNN) Hillary Clinton on Tuesday dismissed the idea of reinstating a Depression-era banking law that has found champions in two of her Democratic opponents, setting up what will likely be a flashpoint in next week’s Democratic primary debate.

Asked by a voter in Iowa about reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act, a law that separated commercial and investment banks until its repeal under President Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton said that her Wall Street plan — which will be unveiled next week — would be “more comprehensive” than reinstating the

Hillary Clinton and Glass-Steagall.

Robert Reich discussed it last July:

Hillary Clinton won’t propose reinstating a bank break-up law known as the Glass-Steagall Act – at least according to Alan Blinder, an economist who has been advising Clinton’s campaign. “You’re not going to see Glass-Steagall,” Blinder saidafter her economic speech Monday in which she failed to mention it. Blinder said he had spoken to Clinton directly about Glass-Steagall.

This is a big mistake.

It’s a mistake politically because people who believe Hillary Clinton is still too close to Wall Street will not be reassured by her position on Glass-Steagall. Many will recall that her husband led the way to repealing Glass Steagall in 1999 at the request of

Amy Goodman talks to investigative reporter Lee Fang about Hillary Clinton’s extremely lucrative career of giving talks at big banks.

The Intercept’s Lee Fang recently questioned Hillary Clinton about her speeches for Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs, which paid her $675,000 for just three appearances. After a town hall in Manchester, New Hampshire, Fang asked Clinton if she would release the transcripts of her paid speeches to Goldman Sachs. Clinton laughed and turned away. Fang joins us to discuss Clinton’s Wall Street ties along with Ellen Chesler, a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and longtime Clinton supporter.

Hang on a second. She laughed. Why? What’s funny about it? Is that supposed to make us think it’s some kind … Read the rest

Congress is mad at Martin Shkreli, even the Republicans. I guess they don’t like it when capitalists make capitalism look bad?

Mr. Shkreli, who left Turing Pharmaceuticals, the drug company he started, after being indicted on federal securities fraud charges in December, repeatedly exercised his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination, angering various members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen the committee treated with such contempt,” Representative John L. Mica, a Florida Republican, said after Mr. Shkreli was excused and left the room.

Dude, he’s a successful entrepreneur. You’re just a politician.

The theatrics surrounding Mr. Shkreli’s appearance, which included his smirking at some remarks by committee members and calling

Naz Shah MP:

Today I participated the Westminster Hall debate – Domestic Violence (DV) against women. In this debate I drew attention to:

• DV against women is an issue for all of us and men especially
• A minority of men are perpetrators of DV but other men may know about situations and fail to challenge and or report
• Behind DV rest sexism and views of women as objects and in this day and age we need to support young people and adults what healthy relationships are and what it involves.
• DV has to become socially unacceptable and so I was proud to make mention of the White Ribbon Campaign.
• Some of the facts

It’s disgusting the way US politicians simply take corruption for granted.

MSNBC reports:

Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton struggled Wednesday night to answer a question about why she took more than $600,000 in speaking fees from Goldman Sachs in one year.

“Well, I don’t know. That’s what they offered,” she said when asked about the fees by CNN host Anderson Cooper in a forum televised by the network with less than a week away from the Granite State’s first-in-the-nation primary. Clinton had a lucrative turn on the paid speaking circuit after she stepped down as secretary of state, which rival Bernie Sanders has used as fodder against her.

That’s taken for granted, but it shouldn’t be. It’s as if being … Read the rest

So Roosh V canceled the whole thing, which seems to confirm what lots of people said, that the whole thing was just a scam to draw attention.

The founder of a group who has advocated legalising rape on private premises has cancelled plans for meetings following a widespread outcry.

Roosh V, whose real name is Daryush Valizadeh, 36, is the founder of Return Of Kings, a group for aspiring self-described “neo-masculinists”.

…

Mr Valizadeh made the announcement on his website: “I can no longer guarantee the safety or privacy of the men who want to attend on February 6, especially since most of the meet-ups can not be made private in time. While I can’t stop men

I took a little travel break to stroll the gardens at Villandry on streetview.

Wikimedia commons:

Jean-Christophe BENOIST

I did the same thing at Chambord the other day; it’s striking how different the settings are. Chambord is plunked down in the middle of a flat plain near the Loire, with nothing else around it, just fields and trees. It looks downright odd, this massive chateau in the middle of nothing.

I love this setting, with the village right at the end of the garden. I went down a street in the village before going to the gardens, a street that ends at that church you see sticking up. It’s a substantial village.… Read the rest

Photos of that gender segregated mosque:

That’s the gymnasium all right.

The boys have a better place to go.

… Read the rest

Danielle Muscato has a public post on Facebook saying a thing that I strongly agree with (and wrote a Free Inquiry column saying a few issues back):

Rant mode engaged:

I’m sick of hearing people say, “No one is pro-abortion. Pro-choice is not pro-abortion.”

Bullshit. I’m pro-abortion. Anytime, for any reason, on demand, no questions asked, no waiting period, no parental consent, no spousal consent, tax-funded abortions, and please take as many free condoms on your way out as you’d like. And I make no apology for this. Your body, your choice.

Copious heated “oh no you didn’t” ensued – nearly all of it from men. Lots of impassioned concern for the other person involved, and the fact that abortion … Read the rest

Asra Nomani and Ify Okoye start with setting the scene:

This past weekend, dozens of girls and boys as young as about 8 years old ran up the stairwell to the main entrance of the musallah, or main prayer hall, of the Islamic Society of Baltimore, where President Obama visits Wednesday in his first presidential visit to a U.S. mosque. As the children rounded the corner, a stern mosque Sunday school teacher stood before them, shouting, “Girls, inside the gym! Boys in the musallah.”

The girls, shrouded in headscarves that, in some cases, draped half their bodies, slipped into a stark gymnasium and found seats on bare red carpet pieces laid out in a corner. They

This just makes me sick – Business Insider reports on the way US Secretary of State John Kerry has been sucking up to Saudi Arabia.

Despite a flurry of international criticism regarding Saudi Arabia’s mass execution, the US government has been exceptionally muted in its response. After the executions, the State Department reported that it had “expressed [its] concerns” about the legal process in Saudi Arabia and raised those concerns at “high levels of the Saudi government”.

Emerging from meetings with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, Secretary Kerry declared the discussion to be “one of the most constructive conversations that we have had in a time.” Speaking to embassy staff in Riyadh, he stated, “We have as

Tiny got in the watering hole and can’t get out. The bank is just a little too steep and a little too slippery. The elephants try to help by screaming and bellowing, but it doesn’t quite work. One craps copiously in Tiny’s general direction, but that doesn’t do it either. Pulling doesn’t do it…but maybe pushing? Worth a try.

… Read the rest

Uh.

Randy Milholland ‏@choochoobear 5 hours ago
So MRAs are planning a meet up in a Chicago park & invited a guy who proposed rape be legalized in public places https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20160202/rogers-park/pro-rape-mens-rights-group-plans-saturday-rally-rogers-park …

Once your organization actively bands with a guy who wants rape legalized, the argument of “we don’t hate women” is harder to make.

I’m curious if there will be any MRAs who actually stop, look at this, and say, “No, that’s not someone I want to be associated with.”

And got my first angry MRA.

“He’s not an MRA, do your goddamn research” – I never said he was. I said he was going to be at a gathering of MRAs & he’s pro rape.

So, yes –

A story a couple of years ago reporting on research that suggests elephants comfort each other.

Credit: Elise Gilchrist Copyright: Think Elephants International, Inc. CC BY SA

Asian elephants reassure other distressed elephants by touching them and “talking” to them, which suggests they are capable of empathy and reassurance, according to new research.

 …

The researchers found that when “an elephant would show distress, the other elephants would adopt that same state — and we call that “emotional contagion” — which is something you typically see in an empathic reaction,” Plotnik said.

Then, the elephants would move toward each other, touch each other’s faces and genitals, and put their trunks in each other’s mouths and chirp, he